6th Annual ESP Medical and Nursing Directors Conference Attracts ED Leaders

Emergency Service Partners, L.P. sponsored its 6th Annual Medical and Nursing Directors Conference November 13, 2009, in Austin at the Hyatt Regency on Town Lake. The conference attracted more than 50 physician and nursing leaders from 22 ESP-affiliated emergency departments across Texas, representing more than 650,000 annual ED visits per year.

• The morning session focused on best practices in patient intake and decreased ED stay. Dr. Shari Welch, research fellow with the Inter-Mountain Health Care System in Utah, provided a broad overview of national trends in improving patient care at the front-end of ED operations. She pointed out the direct relationship between the speed with which a patient first encounters the ED physician, and improved patient satisfaction.
• Dr. Patrick Woods from Houston provided a case study on a Rapid Medical Evaluation program in his emergency department.
• ESP Medical Directors Dr. Dennis Watts and Dr. Chris Ziebell provided details on their implementation of rapid physician evaluation in two Seton facilities, Seton Southwest and University Medical Center Brackenridge.
• The afternoon began with a presentation by Dr. Pat Crocker, ED Medical Director at Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas. Dr. Crocker discussed innovative protocols (the Comfort Zone) being developed at that facility to alleviate pain and anxiety associated with pediatric ED visits.
• Dr. Ron Johnson, Medical Director at the Rollins Brook ED in Lampasas, discussed the impressive patient satisfaction improvements they experienced following implementation of an ED patient call-back program.
• The day ended with presentations from Beth Bratkovic from the Chicago-based KIS organizational development firm, part of our Toolkit for Leadership series. Beth covered issues involved in change management and negotiation.

Emergency department leaders went away with new information for improvement of ED operations. Several medical and nursing leaders are already looking at new programs, such as the patient callback process, for their EDs.

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